Oral solid dosage forms for biologically active agents have been prepared using various techniques that have been used to combine a powdered biologically active agent substance with a diluent and to form that mixture into a physical form that is suitable to make powder filled capsules, compressible particles for making tablets or coatable particles that are adapted for controlled release of active substances using matrix forming additives or membrane based controlled release coatings. As used herein, the term “biologically active agent” is used to include pharmaceutical compounds, pharmaceutical compositions, vitamins and nutrients.
The prior art has used various wet granulation, dry granulation, fluidized-bed, extrusion-spheronization and direct compression techniques to prepare particles in the form of granules or pellets for making solid dosage forms. In addition, spray-drying and spray congealing techniques have been used to form these types of particles.
The use of fluidized beds has been based on the use of top-spray or bottom-spray techniques using a Wurster air suspension column or a tangential-spray in rotary fluid-bed coater/granulator. Apparatus which have been used for coating and/or making pellets are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,895,733; 5,132,142 and 6,354,728 all of which are incorporated by reference. South African patent 20000169 describes certain pharmaceutical pelleted formulations which contain up to 90 wt. % of a pharmaceutically active ingredient which are made by conventional spheronization techniques.
As used herein the term “pellet” means a substantially spherically shaped particle having a aspect ratio (a ratio of the length of the pellet divided by the width found at an angle of 90° in respect to the length) which is less than about 1.4, more preferably less than about 1.3, even more preferably less than about 1.2, especially preferably less than about 1.1, and most preferably less than about 1.05.
In one aspect, the present invention comprises the use of a rotating device that propels the powder particles onto a tangentially arranged surface which causes the powder particles to roll on said tangentially arranged surface. This process results in pellets having a controlled density, for instance highly dense pellets. These pellets may be formulated to have matrix controlled release properties or other types of release properties depending on the excipients which are employed. The pellets may be: adapted to contain high levels of biologically active agents, i.e. more than 90 wt %, such as more than 95 wt % and in particular more than 99 wt % and even more than 99.9 wt % of a biologically active agent in each pellet; pellets that are directly manufactured with a narrow size distribution without the need to carry out any substantial separation step and pellets that have multiple biologically active agent and/or rate release controlling coatings which will provide for controlled release of the active agents and/or physical separation of incompatible agents that are advantageously administered in combination. The pellet may comprise sustained release, pulsatile release, enteric release, immediate release or a combination of these release characteristics. In addition, the present invention provides novel processing methods which can optionally be used to reduce or eliminate the use of organic solvents, can produce smaller particles, can reduce the number of process steps and increase the total throughput per operating unit due to greatly reduced processing cycles.